Books
The History of Malls as Sites of Racism and Surveillance
Alexandra Lange's book Meet Me by the Fountain traces the evolution of shopping malls, environments that were initially designed to serve White women with children.
Review
Art
Mika Rottenberg Mines the Banality and Allure of Spectacle
Despite themes of alienation, fragmentation, and “global domination,” there are indeed elements of lightness, wonder, and curiosity in Rottenberg’s work.
Art
Josefina Auslender's Portraits of Argentina's Dirty War
Auslender's art brings personal associations and a sense of intimacy to images of torture based on the crimes of Argentina's ruling junta from 1974 to 1983.
Film
The Art of Making It Is a Film for Those Who Haven’t Been Paying Attention
The documentary has impressive access to contemporary art world figures, but comes up with no good solutions for the many problems it discusses.
Art
Sonia Gechtoff Finally Gets Her Due
Gechtoff’s work did not fit into any of the New York art world’s narratives of progressive art. It is time we look closer at what this marvelous artist achieved.
Art
Duke Riley’s Burlesque Spin on the Trappings of Museum Display and Folk Art
Riley’s nautical-themed exhibition brims with antic details that constitute a feat of serious world-building.
Art
Shirley Tse's Ecology of the Everyday
In her art, Tse confronts the hypocrisies of our larger environmental reality, in which the time to search for sustainable models is running out.
Art
William T. Wiley's Wild Art Legacy
Nothing Is to Be Done for William T. Wiley is a roller derby of irreverent and energetic ideas and a serious revelation about Northern California’s art historical significance.
Books
The Patrons Who Sustained Sophie Taeuber-Arp
The letters between Taeuber-Arp and her patroness, Annie Müller-Widmann, show the usually invisible tending that goes into an artist-patron relationship.
Film
Different Hong Kong Generations Come Together in Protest Reenactments
Blending documentary and reenactment, director Chan Tze-woon compares and contrasts contemporary and historical activist movements.
Art
Collage as a Strategy of Cultural Collision
Troy Montes-Michie cites the US/Mexico border as his “first experience with the language of collage,” describing it as an amalgamation of “two very separate cultures colliding on every level.”
Books
God Just Wants Us to Love Her Back
In a new graphic novel, author and cartoonist Liana Finck recasts the famously vengeful and masculine biblical God as an insecure and emotional female deity.